Nutrition is one of the cornerstones of health, well-being, and the prevention of numerous chronic diseases. Nutritional products play an important role in these areas and attempts to provide readily available and convenient nutritional products to the general public has been a major focus in recent years. To remain healthy one must receive essential nutrients which are indispensable to human nutrition. Essential nutrients include both macronutrients, such as fats, carbohydrates and proteins, and micronutrients, such as vitamins and minerals (including trace elements and electrolytes).
Milk products constitute a significant portion of the overall diet or calorie consumption of human beings. As such, milk products play a major role in maintaining the health of the public. Nutritionally optimal milk products will have a positive effect on the nutrition and the health of the public. Concentration of macronutrients in any given milk product will often depend on the nature of the product and the desirable profile developed by the manufacturer.
For example, bovine milk contains about 87 wt % water, about 3 wt % protein, about 0.65 wt % whey (soluble proteins), about 4.5 to 5.0 wt % lactose, 3 to 4 wt % milk fat, 0.3 to 0.7 wt % mineral salts plus a variety of water and fat soluble vitamins, lactic and citric acids, urea, free amino acids and polypeptides. One or more of these components may be separated from milk and then may be optionally combined in a variety of combinations to produce various blended compositions. For example, in the manufacture of cottage cheese or casein, milk fat is first separated centrifugally (as cream) and the casein fraction of the milk is then precipitated at its isoelectric point by the addition of acid. The remainder of the original milk, containing all of the other components listed above, is called whey or milk serum, i.e., milk, from which the casein and a majority of the milk fat has been removed is referred to as whey or milk serum.
Whey (or milk serum) in turn can be subjected to filtration to produce a retentate and permeate that can be incorporated into a food product, like a beverage or dry food. For example, raw milk has been filtered to produce a substantially pure dairy water that can be incorporated into a beverage or dairy product for consumption, the dairy water being substantially pure and free of the major nutritional components present in the original raw milk.
It is desirable to exploit the nutritional advantages present in milk by separating milk into its individual components and to produce dairy compositions suitable for consumption by using these individual components in food products. In addition, there is a need in the dairy industry to design dairy compositions that can meet the nutritional requirements of individual groups of the human population such as athletes, lactating women, elderly persons, children, lactose-intolerant populations and diabetics.